“It may be I shall find courage to ask Him that hath made me as I am, if He will have mercy on me in His own good time. For I have never begged for His mercy when I broke His commands. And never have I begged God or man to forgive me a farthing of the price I have paid here in this mountain hut.” A little while after she said softly: “Munan, my eldest son, was twenty years old. He was not such an one then, as I know he is now. They were not such ones then, my children—” Kristin answered low: “But yet have you had Sir Björn by your side each day and each night in all these years.” “Aye—that too have I had,” said Aashild. * * * * * In a little while after, Kristin was done with the butter-making. Lady Aashild said then that they must lie down and try to sleep a little. Inside, in the dark bed, she laid her arm round Kristin’s shoulders, and drew the young head in to her breast. And it was not long before she heard by her even gentle breathing that Kristin was fallen asleep. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4 The frost held on. In every byre in the parish the half-starved beasts bellowed dolefully with hunger and cold. Already the farmers were skimping and saving on their fodder, every straw they could. There was little visiting round at Yule this year; folks stayed quiet in their own homes. During Yule-tide the cold grew greater—it was as though each day was colder than the last. Scarce anyone could call to mind so hard a winter—there came no more snow, not even up in the mountains; but the snow that had fallen at Clementsmass froze hard as a stone. The sun shone from a clear sky, now the days began to grow lighter. At night the northern lights flickered and flamed above the range to the north—they flamed over half the heaven, but they brought no change of weather; now and again would come a cloudy day, and a little dry snow would sprinkle down—and then came clear weather again and biting cold. The Laagen muttered and gurgled sluggishly under its ice-bridges. Kristin thought each morning that she could bear no more, that she could never hold out to the day’s end. For each day she felt was as a duel between her and her father. And _could_ they be against each other so, when every living being in the parish, man and beast, was suffering under one common trial?—But still, when the evening came, she had held out one day more. It was not that her father was unfriendly. They spoke no word of what was between them, but she felt, behind all that he did not say, his firm unbending will to hold fast to his denial.